• Double click on on the left side of the screen.
• Click on an economic indicator (e.g., Balance of Payments). If there is a plus sign to the left of the series name, click on it to view a list of additional time series within that category.
• Click on one or more countries in the Country column in the middle of the screen.
• Next, click on one or more of the available time series listed in the column labeled Descriptor.
• Finally, click on the Add button in the Series to Retrieve section and then on the Retrieve button. The data will be displayed in spreadsheet format.
• To check whether a particular times series is available for a country, click on the name of the time series in the far left column and then on the Availability button in the Selections section near the top.

BROWSE FOR DATA USING CONSTRAINTS

Before browsing, it is possible to limit the data to specific countries or groups of countries by setting constraints under the Options tab. For example, if the Country Constraint is set to “Australia,” only data for Australia will be displayed when browsing.

To set a Country Constraint:

• Click on the Options tab at the top of the screen.
• Select one or more of the countries or groups listed in the Country Constraints box. (To view listings of countries that comprise particular groups [e.g., “Developing Countries,” “Western Hemisphere”], right click in the Country Constraints box and then click on the Show Country Groups button that appears. Next, highlight the name of a group in the Group/Country list and click on the Show Members button, which is below the list.
• Click on the Set Constraints button.
• The Browse tab will change to Browse with Constraints as a reminder that constraints have been set. Click on the Browse tab and proceed with browsing.
• To clear the constraints, click on the Options tab and then on Clear Constraints.
• Note: Although it is possible to set topic constraints under the Options tab, the constraint only applies to browsing of the World Tables and the Economic Concept View. All of the topics will still appear when browsing the Country Tables.

SEARCH FOR DATA

The IFS database can be searched using codes for country names and time series names. Each piece of data is assigned a 13-character time series code, consisting of a country code (3 characters), subject code (5 characters), version code (1), control source code (1), and partner country code (3). If one of these subsections does not apply, a period is used as filler. An example of a time series code for the Gross Domestic Product of Libya is “67299B..ZF...”, where the country code for Libya is 672, the subject code for Gross Domestic Product is 99B.., the version code is Z (or first version), the Control Source code is F (or IFS), and the partner code is not applicable. Since IFS does not contain Direction of Trade data, the partner country code section for all codes will always be … (three periods). More information regarding the structure of these codes can be found in the Help screens in IFS. Click on the green question mark in the upper right corner of the screen, type the word searching in the Index and click on the topic: Searching IFS Database Using Time Series Keys

Note: Keyword searching does not work well in the Search screen – for the best results, it is necessary to use the proper time series codes or simply browse through the lists of available countries and subjects.

To search the IFS database:

• Click on the Search tab at the top of the screen.
• Select a Country and/or a Subject by browsing through the drop-down lists, or enter codes for the Country and/or the Subject in the boxes containing the asterisks, according to the Naming Conventions for IFS Time Series. Refer to the last page of this guide for the Country Codes and use the Help screens in IFS to learn about the structure of the codes. Do not type words into the empty boxes. It is possible to enter the first one or two numbers of a subject or country code and then type the wildcard symbol (asterisk) following the code to retrieve a list of all time series beginning with those numbers. For example, after using the help screens to determine that 9 is the beginning of the codes for time series on national accounts, choose a country from the drop-down menu and type 9* in the Subject box to view a list of time series for that country on that topic.
• Click on the Search button to retrieve a list of time series matching the search criteria.
• In the TSKey column, click on those series to be retrieved.
• Click on the Add button.
• Then, click on the Browse tab and click on Retrieve in the Series to Retrieve section.

VIEWING DATA

After clicking on Retrieve in the Browse screen, the data will be displayed in a row in a spreadsheet. In addition to the data itself, the following information will also be reported: Country Name, Time Series Name, Time Series Code, Units (e.g., US Dollars) and Scale (e.g., Millions). If a particular piece of data has a footnote, it will be highlighted in bold blue type. When moving the cursor over the footnoted cell, a small window will be displayed with the footnote text. To return to the Browse screen, click on the X in the upper right corner.

Using the Options tab, it is possible to change many of the default settings for the display:

• To display the data for each requested time series in a column, rather than a row, click on Transposed View in the Output Orientation section.
• Add certain data to the spreadsheet, such as Base Year, by clicking on the appropriate circle in the Optional Meta Data Fields section.
• Change the scale (e.g., to thousands or billions) by clicking on the appropriate circle in the Scale Option section.

PRINTING AND SAVING

• To print the spreadsheet from the Data Viewer, either click on the printer icon or click on File, then Print on the menu at the top of the screen. Due to the length of the time series, the data will often print across several pages. Saving to a disk is strongly encouraged.
• To save the spreadsheet to a disk, click on File, then Save As on the menu at the top of the screen. Insert a disk in the drive and change the Save in menu to a:\. Type a file name and choose from the various formats (e.g., Excel, tabbed text) using the Save as type drop-down menu.

HELP

For additional information, click on the green question mark in the upper right corner of the screen and view the Table of Contents or search the Index.

09/13/2005